RandomPottins

Friday, July 31, 2009

Keeping company with Ahmadinejad

AN Iranian comrade draws my attention to an interesting item from the Wall Street Journal It comes as protests continue in Iran, and there are reports that a socialist student, one of those arrested on May Day, has died in prison, possibly after torture.

A privately owned German company, Knauf Gips KG, warned its Iranian employees working in Iran that they would be immediately dismissed if caught in anti-government protests, according to a document reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Iran's government pressured Knauf to issue the order after a senior executive was arrested during Friday prayer demonstrations two weeks ago, according to people familiar with the case. The company, which has 22,000 employees around the world, was told that such a letter would be a condition for the executive's release.

The order by Knauf, a drywall-manufacturing company with decades of business history in Iran, shows how foreign companies in Iran are vulnerable to severe repercussions if they don't comply with demands from the regime.

Since protests following Iran's June 12 presidential election, Iran has cracked down on opposition supporters, particularly Iranians or dual nationals employed by Western companies, embassies and the media. Iran has accused some of fomenting a "velvet" revolution and acting as links between opposition leaders and foreign countries.

Protesters have come from all walks of life. The employee at the center of the Knauf controversy is a 34-year-old dual national of Germany and Iran and heads the company's Iran operation. He was released four days after Knauf agreed to issue the order but faces trial, according to the company and others.

Isabel Knauf, a founding-family member who is on the supervisory board of the Iran operation, signed a letter that was circulated confidentially to its hundreds of Iranian employees on July 21.

"We would like to remind all of our employees to remember that they are not only representing their private opinion when being politically active, but their actions could fall back negatively on our Knauf companies in Iran," said the letter, which was reviewed by the Journal. "Therefore, from now on, if anybody from our company gets caught demonstrating against the current government, he or she will be immediately dismissed."

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We could well imagine that firms doing business in Iran would be under pressure to make pro-government statements and tell their staff not to take part in demonstrations. The pressure would be worse after a senior executive had been arrested. But making a public statement is not the same as sending out a personal letter to employees. We can also well imagine that companies are not happy about workers walking out on protests, or even holding meetings in the workplace. But this letter clearly also applies to activity outside working hours. telling people they are "not only representing their private opinion when being politically active", but belong to the company, is a curious version of democracy, whether Iranian or Western. And the threat of instant dismissal makes this not just a political statement but a policing action on behalf of the regime.

The Wall Street Journal notes that Germany is Iran's biggest trading partner after the United Arab emirates and China. "Some 85 German companies have operations in Iran, ranging from Deutsche Lufthansa AG to auto supplier ZF Friedrichshafen AG, according to the German-Iranian Chamber of Commerce. In addition, 7,000 to 8,000 German companies conduct business in Iran through local representatives, the chamber says".

German chancellor Angela Merkel, like other Western politicians, has criticised repression in Iran, and some Iranians, taking such comments as genuine, are taken aback to find a European firm threatening staff with the sack for protesting. A German Foreign Ministry spokesman said "If it's true that German companies are restricting or forbidding staff from demonstrating, then the German government doesn't welcome it."

It's not hard to see why this story interests the Wall Street Journal, and not necessarily from the same motives as Iranian workers and democratic activists fighting the regime. The US, like Israel, still regards Iran as an enemy. Some Western companies have been turning down Iranian business in line with US sanctions policies. But this can hit ordinary Iranians, rather than the regime, particularly lately when students and Iranian exiles have been using mobiles and the internet to communicate news and information. On the other hand Nokia has been condemned for providing police communications, and we may ask about the water cannon equipment which has been used.

The shrinking band of pseudo-Lefts and at best naive idealists who argue that the Iranian regime must be supported because it is "anti-imperialist" have never been prepared to even consider that there might be more than one imperialist interest involved, and in conflict, in Middle East and world affairs. Elected governments may still feel obliged to uphold the unity of Cold War days, but commercial and secret operations need not be so polite, nor stick to the same rules. When the Islamicist regime is overthrown, the revolutionaries might unearth some quite un-Islamic explanations underlying use of Hizbollah for a bombing in Buenos Aires and hosting a Holocaust revisionist conference in Tehran.

But right now it is clear neither US or European imperialists, let alone the Zionist colonisers, have the advancement of Iranian people's rights at heart. Neither war nor sanctions will help the Iranian people, or the workers' cause. The only people who can be trusted to help are those fighting for similar rtights and aims themselves.

Workers' sanctions, if possible, to prevent means of repression reaching the Iranian regime. (In Britain that would mean challenging the anti-union laws).

Solidarity, to directly assist the workers and students in Iran, with demonstrations and material help.

Saturday, July 25, 2009

From Norwich to the Isle of Wight

THE ANSWER IS BLOWING IN THE WIND

LABOUR's defeat in the Norwich North by-election was no surprise, and not an occasion to weep or rejoice. Turning a Labour majority of 5,000 odd votes into a Tory majority of 7,000 gives Tory leader David Cameron something to smile about, on a day when he had just told the Sun that people in Britain are living too well, and promised his government would cut spending on public services, and face down the unions on jobs.

Labour brought this debacle on itself not just by disappointing the voters with its policies in government, but by the undignified MP's expenses scramble, which was compounded in Norwich by scapegoating popular local MP Ian Gibson, who had broken no rules, but taken the fees office advice in letting his daughter live rent free in a flat for which he had claimed. Told he would not be able to stand for Labour at the next election, Gibson decided to step down now, hence bringing about the by-election. Harriet Harman says he should not have done - once more demonstrating the Labour leadership's ability to blame anybody but itself for things going wrong.

With all three main parties sharing some measure of public disgust over the expenses row, the Tories probably benefited from having a young candidate whose assumed lack of political experience would make her look cleaner to the electorate. But though 27 year old business consultant Chloe Smith is now the youngest MP, she is not a newcomer to Westminster. As she mentioned, she has worked for Tory MPs Gillian Shepherd and Bernard Jenkin. Apparently she was modest enough not to mention her association with another Tory MP,work and pensions spokesman James Clappison, MP for Hertsmere, who owns 24 houses and lives in two of them, and claimed over £100, 000 for expenses like gardening and redecoration.http://www.libdemvoice.org/why-has-the-norwich-north-tory-candidate-redacted-her-links-to-tory-mp-james-clappison-15615.html

The Tory victory in Norwich is not a resounding as that in Crewe and Nantwich in May last year. Then they gained by 17 per cent. This time the overall swing looks almost as big.. But when you look closer, the Tory vote in Norwich only increased by 6.3 points. The Labour vote collapsed, by over 26.7 per cent, but that was because large numbers of Labour voters were sick and tired of the politicians' performance, and could not bring themselves to vote. (That long standing Party members sympathised with Ian Gibson over the way he was treated probably did not help, but where do you find enthusiastic party workers these days?) Some did venture a cross for minority parties - the Greens who only got 5 per cent in 2005 won 28 per cent this time.

To look at the picture of ('New') Labour government and the people the Labour Party was supposed to stand for from a different angle, let's cross to the Isle of Wight. Not part of Old Labour's industrial heartlands, perhaps, beven Karl Marx only went there for a rest-cure holiday, but the islanders do have to work, and right now a group of them are fighting for their jobs.

They are not in some old, outdated industry. Vestas moved to the Isle of Wight nine years ago, attracting around £3.5 million in government subsidy.The factory at Newport manufactures wind turbines. A lot of people, leaving out those foreseeing richer pickings from nuclear power stations, see that as the cutting edge of Britain's effort to increase power supplies while cutting carbon emissions.

Local MP Andrew Turner says the government intends to build around 7,000 wind turbines across the country. But the Danish-owned company insists that it is leaving Britain because there is a reduced demand for wind turbines in Europe.The Department of Energy and Climate Change says the Newport factory wasn't making turbines for Europe, but for the US market, to an entirely different specification. Vestas owners want to set up in the US. Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband, insists one of the reasons for the firm's departure is that Britain is one of the most difficult countries in which to get planning permission.

As the Morning Star asks, how can the government have plans for the turbines without knowing where they are going to go? It also notes that according to Miliband, the government has worked with Vestas for some time to work out how the factory could be converted to produce blades for the UK market.

So what is going on? Is the government too uncertain about its energy and environment plans to convnce? Or is it just too easy, having pocketed subsidies from the British taxpayer, to pack up and sack workers in this country? Not because the workers will put up with it, but because while every possible consideration is given to capitalists, whatever damage they do to the country, the full weight of anti-union law and police are ready against workers and their unions should they resist.

Some 600 jobs could go because of Vestas closure, and that in an island where 60 workers are chasing every job now. So a couple of dozen workers occupied the factory, and there are climate change and environment campaigners camped nearby. Riot police are surrounding the factory, and have prevented food being taken in to the occupying workers. In short, the workers are defending what is theirs, their jobs, livelihoods and skills, and the police are there to make it easier for them to be robbed.

The working-class union activists and environmental protesters reflect the kind of alliance which put Labour in back in 1997, and which is coming together against this government today. If the Tories and more right-wing politicians seem to be winning, it is because these real forces for change have yet to find political expression.

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Monkey Business

IT sounds like one of the stories our Tory tabloids love making up. A major trade union with members in every town hall has decided to discipline four of its members for criticising a union committee in a leaflet, and for using familiar figures in a cartoon to illustrate the leaflet.

Their leaflet featured the "Three Wise Monkeys", originating in Buddhist lore, which can be seen around the world, from a Japanese temple to a bar in Sydney and a theatre group in San Francisco, and as ornaments on many a mantelpiece, including my old Auntie Ada's when I was a little kid. One has its hands covering his eyes, the other covers its ears, and the third has a hand over its mouth. "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil", was the saying, and in Japanese the ending of each punned with a word for monkey. Originally meant as good advice not to see the worst in things, it has come to be used more ironically to describe people who prefer not to recognise what they should.

The "guilty" Unison members no doubt intended the familiar figures to add an eye-catching touch of humour to their leaflet two years ago complaining that the union's Standing Orders Committee had ruled out some key resolutions from being debated at conference.

But because the chair of the committee happened to be a black person, some people apparently interpreted the cartoon as offensive, and "racialist". No need to ask what monkeys have to do with black people, no doubt they were thinking of those racist lumpen who made "ape" noises and threw bananas if a black footballer got the ball. Trouble is, they not only appeared unaware of the three wise monkeys' international significance, which has nothing to do with racialist morons, but unaware that one of the four whom the union has effectively accused of "racialism", Greenwich branch secretary Onay Kasab, as his name suggests, is also one of the union's black and minority ethnic (BME)members. Shouldn't he be just as entitled to protection as the chair he criticised, protection for instance from false and hurtful accusations of racialism?

Incidentally, in some versions of the three wise monkeys story there are four of them, the last being "Do no evil". And it seems that when the Unison investigation began there were five accused, not four. Could it be a coincidence that the four now facing discipline are all members of the Socialist Party, and the fifth person isn't? The Socialist Party ('Militant Tendency' as was) is keen to point to that. It may be exaggerating the significance. But it is up to the Unison leadership to prove it is not picking on the Left, and using the "racial" accusation as a pretext. As we have seen, this case is not isolated..

Here is what the Socialst Party says: "The first charge against the four Unison members is that they produced a leaflet at the annual conference of Unison in 2007 which questioned why the Standing Orders Committee had ruled out key motions from being debated. Simply highlighting this on a leaflet resulted in the first charge of an "attack on the integrity of the members of the Standing Orders Committee."

The second charge relates to the use on the leaflet of a well known Buddhist proverb and cartoon of the 'three wise monkeys' (see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.)

The four have been charged with "Failing to show due care in not anticipating that someone might take offence [from the leaflet]'"

On 17 July Unison's disciplinary panel delivered their verdict and then scuttled off to consider the sentence. The result should be known in a couple of weeks.

Unison executive member Jon Rogers, a member of the Labour Representation Committee, has a fair and objective discussion of the leaflet and the sensitivities it aroused, from which it emerges that some black members of Unison were genuinely upset over it, but that the Four accused did make a real effort to apologise for any unintended offence they had caused, only for the mike to be snatched from one when he tried to make a statement at the union's conference: :http://jonrogers1963.blogspot.com/2008/01/i-promised-in-response-to-comments-from.html

I can't help wondering whether union members and anti-racists feel their union has its priorities right in having held a two year investigation of this leaflet and cartoon, at a time when low-paid union members, many of them black and minority members, are having to fight to get even the minimum living wage, and when their children, even with qualifications, are finding it increasingly hard to enter the labour market. A time when the two major parties are sparring over who will make the bigger cuts in public service jobs. I wonder if their sensitivities might be aroused over union representatives being victimised, or 'border police' arranging the deportation of migrant workers who joined the union. I see the BNP and other Nazi groups are having a good laugh at the news that Unison is discuipling four left-wingers, one of them black, for supposed racialism.

As a union member I don't want to single out another union for criticism. But there is something wrong with Unison, even if its not alone. I'll leave the last word as to what I feel on this sort of thing to another Charlie:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsK1OPt_tTI

Monday, July 20, 2009

Speaking freely in San Francisco

ONE of the favourite tricks of oppressive regimes and persecutors is to make out they're the ones being persecuted. Unfortunately with the help of compliant media it sometimes seems to work. We remember when the Skies Are Weeping concert, premiering that oratorio in honour of American peace worker Rachel Corrie, was put on at London's Hackney Empire, most people coming to the concert ignored the bunch of protesting Zionists outside. But not so the BBC. Having given no previous publicity to the event, it reported the following night thtt it happened, but gave last word to the Zionists.

Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer as she tried to halt the demolition of a Palestinian family's home. The bulldozer driver said he would do it again. Rachel's mother, Cindy Corrie, flew to London to be guest of honour at the requiem premiere, which had not been held in United States concert halls or theatres because of Zionist pressure and threats. To hear them you'd think Rachel was some kind of terrorist who had savagely attacked the army bulldozer, and that her mother was waging an unreasonable campaign against the Zionists.

Indeed the man from the Zionist Federation pretended the handful of odd characters he had assembled to oppose the concert were representing Jewish people in London, and the BBC played along with this. In fact the woman who organised the concert, and sang the oratorio, Debbie Fink, told the BBC that she was Jewish, as were many of the partipants, sponsors, and on the night, members of the audience. The BBC cut Debbie and and her comments completely from their broadcast.

The dogs bark, but the caravan marches on, and the reason I have recalled the Hackney event is some good new from California. It comes courtesy of an excellent blog called Muzzlewatch, an offshoot of Jewish Voices for Peace, specialising in news of how the Israel Lobby attempts to silence critics, and how they resist being silenced. Here is the report:

Amanda Pazornik of J. Weekly reports on the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival’s controversial decision to go forward and present Rachel, a documentary made by Jewish-Israeli filmaker Simone Bitton about the death of Rachel Corrie by an IDF bulldozer while she was protesting home demolitions in Gaza. Both Rabbi Doug Kahn, the head of the San Francisco Community Relations Council, and Israel Consul General Akiva Tor were particularly incensed about the decision to invite Corrie’s mother, Cindy Corrie, to speak at the July 25 screening.

“I know there are many members of the community who would prefer if the festival stayed away from programming films on difficult topics or topics of passionate division of opinion. That being said, if we, as an arts organization, are going to remain relevant in our time, it really is part of our role to catalyze conversation, however uncomfortable it may be.”

One Israel activist complained:

“Corrie has become a hero of anti-Israel extremists. Her story is not really about a young American activist who died of complex circumstances. It’s about promoting a hate-filled and glaringly one-sided anti-Israel agenda.”

Cecilie Surasky of Jewish Voice, one of the sponsors of the film, added, “Cindy Corrie is a rare person who can speak clearly about the injustices of what her daughter saw and worked to address, without fueling one ounce of hatred. She sees this is a basic, human justice issue, not a Jewish versus Palestinian issue. Jews are among the Corries’ greatest supporters, and I find it sad to think that some believe the Jewish community is so weak that we cannot even have these important conversations. “

Simone Bitton’s previous documentaries have focused on the separation wall in the West Bank and the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

The high price of telling the truth

Natalia Estemirova found shot dead after being abductedoutside her home.

Natalia Estemirova in the Chechen capital, Grozny, in 2004.

IN some places there is a high price to be paid for trying to uncover and tell the truth, and standing up for human rights and justice. We can only marvel at the women and men who take that risk.

Natalia Estemirova was one of them, reporting on the kind of 'order' that reigns in Chechnya, since it was restored by Russian forces. .

This morning she was seized by four men as she left for work. Neighbours at her house in Grozny, Chechnya's capital, heard her shout: "I'm being kidnapped."

Her body was found near Gazi-Yurt village, in neighbouring Ingushetia. She had been shot twice in the head and chest, police said. Her corpse was dumped on the main road.

There was more than a similarity linking this to the murder of Anna Politkovskaya, the journalist shot dead outside her Moscow apartment in 2006. The two women had been close friends, and had worked together on investigations into human rights abuses in Chechnya. They were strong opponents of Chechnya's Russian-backed president, Ramzan Kadyrov..

Estemirova was the Chechnya-based head of Memorial, Russia's oldest human rights group. She recently collaborated on two reports into punitive house burnings and extra-judicial killings in Chechnya, allegedly carried out by government forces. They told how Kadyrov's troops shot 20-year-old Madina Yunusova and her husband near Grozny.

Chechen officials claimed her husband had been involved in a plot to kill Kadyrov. Yunosova died three days later in hospital under mysterious circumstances.

Estemirova made no attempt to hide her work. Her office near the newly renamed Putin avenue was well known.

Earlier this year Estemirova attended the trial in Moscow of four people – two of them Chechens – accused of involvement in Politkovskaya's murder.She later described the trial as a "farce".

Estemirova was also a close colleague of human rights lawyer Stanislav Markelov, who was murdered in Moscow in January. A masked assassin shot Markelov in the back of the head, not far from the Kremlin, along with Anastasia Baburova, a journalist with the Novaya Gazeta newspaper.

The Chechen people and their neighbours the Ingush were subject to brutal mass deportations during Stalin's reign. In more recent times the ruthless way in which Russian forces bombed and flattened Grozny, the Chechen capital, in order to crush insurgents, was a shock to the world. Ramzan Kadyrov - who denied any part in the Politkovskaya murder, saying he did "not kill women" - has been given charge of counter-insurgency both in Chechnya and Ingushetia. He is a close ally of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

President Dmitry Medvedev has strongly condemned the murder of Natalia Estemirova. But it seems the brutality with which Russian leaders stamped down on insurgency in the north Caucasus has not only opened Chechnya to the outside jihadi influence which they now blame. It has created a poison which spills back into Russian society, ruining people's chances of enjoying real democracy.

Here in the West, which so many Russians naievely looked to as lands of freedom, and where so many Russian oligarchs and kleptocrats come to launder and spend their ill-gotten gains, we see so-called journalists fawning on leaders with power and wealth, filling the media with lies and trivia, and abusing their skills to pursue the lowest on the social ladder at the behest of their immensely wealthy proprieters.. We can only envy the people in Russia and neighbouring lands their courageous campaigners for justice and truth.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Did the state kill Dr.Kelly?

DR.DAVID KELLY answering questions. His death has raised more.

DID Britain's secret state kill government scientist Dr.David Kelly because he had blown the gaff on Tony Blair's lies about the reasons for invading Iraq? . A report in yesterday's Morning Star says over a dozen doctors have alleged that the scientist was "assassinated", and they are demanding a proper investigation into his death..Dr Kelly, a Ministry of Defence biological warfare expert, had been seconded to the UN to work as a weapons inspector in Iraq in 2002 and 2003, when. Tony Blair and US president George W Bush were plotting their war. .Concerned about government exagerations of Saddam Hussein's military threat, he confided to a BBC reporter that ministers "probably knew" that their notorious claim that Iraq could attack Britain with missiles within 45 minutes was a lie.

Ministry of Defence bosses were angry and questioned Dr.Kelly about what he had told the BBC.His body was found in a field, soon after he was exposed as the source for the critical programme about the war..

An official inquiry, led by Tony Blair's close friend Lord Hutton claimed that the scientist had taken his own life by cutting his wrist after overdosing on painkillers. Many people refused to believe the "suicide" story. Now a group of 13 sceptical doctors - led by retired orthopaedic and trauma surgery consultant David Halpin - have mounted a legal challenge to overturn Lord Hutton's conclusion.

Pointing out that, unusually, no coroner's inquest had been held into the scientist's death, Mr Halpin explained that "Lord Hutton's inquiry did not have the same legal standards as a coroner's inquest. As a result, due process has been subverted, and the group of doctors that I am part of is not prepared to let that go," he stressed. The doctors have drawn up a dosssier on the case.

"Such a cut to the ulnar artery, which is small and difficult to access, could not have caused death. The bleeding from Dr Kelly's wrist is unlikely to have been so voluminous and rapid that it was the cause of death," he insisted. "There is evidence of a cover-up and I think it is highly likely that Dr Kelly was assassinated," Mr Halpin asserted unequivocally.

David Halpin will be known to Middle East peace activists for combining his professional background as a specialist and keenness as mariner in pioneering humanitarian aid voyages to break the siege of Gaza. He says "Dr. Kelly was a skilled and courageous man and he deserves a proper inquest." .

The Hutton report was severely critical of the BBC, and led to director general Greg Dyke's resignation. He claimed to have been let down by Pauline Neville-Jones, a BBC governor who was a former chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee, before working with Lord Hurd both at the Foreign Office and NatWest Markets. Baronness Neville-Jones has since done well at QinetiQ, the defence research establishment taken over by American interests, before becoming Tory David Cameron's adviser on security issues.

There was a time when few people would have believed the British security services could killanyone, or for that matter, thought a prime minister could lie to parliament to justify war. Nowadays there are all kinds of "conspiracy theories", about events from the death of Princess Diana to the 7/7 bombings, and they are not just held by charlatans and cranks. Trying to explain everything by a huge and ever-more elaborate conspiracy may say more about the believers than the events they try to explain. But conspiracies do happen, otherwise governments would not need Official Secrets Acts, and those entrusted with maintaining secrets and cover-ups can get into the habit of thinking they are above the rest of us, and that the laws they are meant to uphold do not apply to them.

When I heard that the body of Dr. David Kelly had been found in a field I automatically thought of another uninvestigated death, that of a man called Kenneth Lennon, whose body was found in a Surrey ditch in 1974. Lennon had told the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL., now Liberty) that Special Branch had used knowledge about his family tp press him into spying on an Irish group in Luton.

When Lennon reported to his handlers that the group which met over a Luton pub were only discussing history, and not engaged in any illegal activity, they told him he had to get something more. Eventually he had become a provocateur, always clamouring in the group for "action". But after three members were jailed for a raid on a gunshop he felt guilty. And more than a little afraid.

One night he wandered into Ronnie Scott's jazz club, in Soho, the worse for wear, and over a drink he poured out his story to blues singer and writer George Melly. It was Melly who suggested that he take his story to the NCCL..Lennon left with what might have just seemed bar talk, Melly recalled. "He told me that if I read in the papers that he had been found face down in a puddle, or maybe it was a ditch, I would know he was speaking the truthhttp://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,911221,00.html

A few days later, after he had spoken to the NCCL, that was what happened. Lennon had been shot twice in the head. We are supposed to believe this was an IRA 'hit', punishing Lennon as an informer.

But police had told the press that Lennon's story was a clever IRA plot to discredit the police and security services. If that was the case, surely the IRA would have wanted to produce Kenneth Lennon at a press conference and have him going around lecturing, rather than leaving him dead in a ditch? Whereas those who dragooned him into acting as an informer, and setting up his friends, would certainly take a dim view of his deciding to tell his story, and his death might serve as a health warning to others thinking of telling tales.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Demolishing homes, demolishing hopes for peace

WILL JERUSALEM GET THE MESSAGE?WILL REST OF WORLD TAKE NOTICE?

POLICE moved against protesters who had set up a tent and photographic exhibition outside the Houses of Parliament at Westminster today as part of an international day of solidarity with Palestinian families facing eviction and house demolitions in Jerusalem. Later a group of young people attempted to pitch tents by the Israeli embassy, well aware that their action couldn't last long, as armed police guard the embassy, and demonstrations are never allowed in the gated road known as "embassy row" outside.

Today's day of action was called because 28 families in Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood are resisting Israeli plans to evict Palestinians and clear their homes to make way for more Jewish settlement. Two families , the al Ghawe and the Hannouns, were ordered in court on May 17 to sign a guarantee for 50,000 shekels ($12,600) and present a further bank guarantee for $50,000, the money to be taken if they do not hand over the keys to their homes, and vacate them, by noon on 19 July.

A settler organisation, Nahalat Shimon International, has been given permission to enter the houses, and to set about replacing them with a 200-unit development called Shimon HaTzadik. If the fathers of the Palestinian families do not comply with the order they will be sent to prison for contempt.

A Tzadik, by the way, (saddiq in Arabic) is somebody who strives to do righteousness, hence tzedekah, meaning both justice and charity. Not commodities in much supply in Jerusalem. Having unilaterally annexed the East Jerusalem area and environs, Israel is claiming the whole city as exclusively its capital, as well as surrounding them with settlements in such a way as to separate it from the West Bank and divide the latter in two.

Palestinian families remaining in occupied East Jerusalem, some of them refugees from Israel's creation in 1948, or the 1967 war, are resisting what they see as a policy that not only makes them homeless, but amounts to ethnic cleansing, dispossessing their people of what should be the capital of a Palestinian state. The neighbourhoods most severely affected are Sheikh Jarrah, Silwan, Ras Khamiis, Al Tur and Sur Beher however house evictions and demolitions are not uncommon in the Old City itself. In Silwan, 88 homes in the al Bustan quarter are facing immediate destruction in order to create space for a planned national park. In addition, two apartment buildings housing 34 families in the adjacent al Abbasiyya quarter have also received demolition orders. When completed, up to 2,000 Palestinians will be uprooted from their homes.

The families in Sheikh Jarrah have spent 37 years fighting legal battles for the right to stay in their own homes, in their own land. Israeli courts, including the High Court, have accepted the claims of Zionist settlers organisations, and ignored the documents produced by the Sheikh Jarrah community which clearly prove their legal status and the ownership of the land.

People who have lost their homes have set up tents to hold their ground. Hence the idea of asking friends in other countries to set up tents as a symbol of protest and resistance. Maher Hannoun, whose family is facing eviction, said:"As refugees and people living under occupation, we are asking people to help us with our struggle for our rights. It is unbelievable that in the 21st century, Israel's authorities can get away with demolishing the homes of Palestinians in order to build settlements or national parks. The price we and our neighbours have to pay is too high, we are faced with two impossible choices - either we throw our kids out on the street or we go to prison. If we lose our homes, there is nowhere else for us to go, the only option we have is to live in tents.International solidarity gives us more power and strength to continue in our struggle and stay in our homes. We need support from people around the world to let everybody know about our story and pressure their governments to help stop this racist policy of house evictions and demolitions".

Sheikh Jarrah is not some remote village, nor is it in some inaccessible war zone. World media organisations have their correspondents and their cameras in Jerusalem, and governments like Britain have their consulates. They cannot say they do not know what is happening under their noses. But will we see evictions and home demolitions on our television news, and will our government comment upon them?

Rather than wait for the media to report the news, people are turning to their own resources. Rather than wait for governments to act, we can give them a shove, by people-to-people solidarity initiatives. At a meeting yesterday in Portcullis House, Westminster, spokespersons for the UK branch of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) and Jews for Justice for Palestinians said they had tried various places for permission to set up their tent, but like the Sheikh Jarrah people's documents their letters were ignored. They were told the Victoria Tower Gardens next to the Houses of Parliament would not accept anything of a political or religious nature, but hearing that someone had permission to erect a house there to draw attention to the issue of climate change, they decided to try their luck with a tent. Good for them. And for the young people who were determined to take their protest on to the embassy, good luck, whoever you were..

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Sparks off the Rock

THE row over some of Rupert Murdoch's minions routinely tapping telephones for their stories has brought diverse reactions. A journalist friend, inclined perhaps to defend his colleagues rather than consider how his skills (not to mention scruples) were being rendered redundant, has remarked on the hypocrisy of those in government who authorise telephone tapping and surveillance of mere working folk and political dissidents, yet show outrage on hearing it is done to them,as well as showbiz celebs.

On the other hand, many people point to what seems like police reluctance to go into this, compared to the alacrity with which others are prosecuted. "I wonder what the News of the World has on the Yard?", asked one cheeky letter writer. Whatever it is, those of us who remember the charging police horses outside Fort Wapping tend to assume that, broken laws or not, the Met and Murdoch's merry men and women understand they are on the same side.

Britain is said to have more surveillance than any other country. For my generation "Big Brother" held menace, for the young it's just a naff television programme offering instant "celebrity" to anyone desperate for attention. The way some people use their mobiles you can listen into them from a distance whether you like it or not, without needing any bugging equipment, though what with the over-acting performance I sometimes suspect if you could hear the other end it would just be a clear voice saying "the time now is...exactly".

But those of us who do worry about surveillance and eavesdropping are aware that they are often linked with the other, less entertaining aspects of Big Brother, such as police repression and blacklisting. Now and then the kind of thing we all suspect, or know, goes on comes into the public gaze, and people who have previously sneered that we were paranoid turn to shrugging and saying "of course, so what?", even "don't you think it is justified?"

That happened in 1948, and yes we had a Labour government then. As we did when Brian Bamford had his experience, as he tells in the Summer issue of Northern Voices magazine.

"One Saturday morning in the Summer of 1967, I met Alberto Risso, then boss of the Gibraltar branch of the Transport and General Workers' Union and Gibraltar's Minister of Labour, outside the Town Hall on Main Street, Gibraltar . We were there to get the aid of Sir Joshua Hassan, who became Gibraltar's Chief Minister, to help me to continue to work as an electrician and let my young family stay in Gibraltar. Our residence permit had been cancelled by the British authorities".

Albert Fava's expulsion was ordered on the basis of intercepted correspondence with British trades unionists and the Communist Party. In Brian's case, as he was told by Alberto Risso, the authorities knew he was "not a communist", but they saw him as a "dangerous anarchist". As Brian recalls, this was at a time when General Franco was stepping up pressure on Gibraltar and about to close the frontier. Faced with a hostile fascist dictator, the British Foreign Office and security services naturally had to clamp down on Franco's enemies, the communists and anarchists!

Harold Wilson's Labour government was in office. Back in Manchester, Brian, the "dangerous anarchist" had been involved in the 1960 engineering apprentices' strike, and had served four days in Strangeways for taling part in a Ban-the-Bomb sit-down in 1962. So now he was blackballed to prevent him working in Her Majesty's Dockyard, or for any of the contractors engaged in government work. A memo was sent out to local firms warning them not to employ this man.

He managed to get a job as an electrician with Gibraltar City Council, but that was when the British government stepped in with its powers to take away Brian and his family's residence permit.

What prompted Brian to recall this episode was the raid on the Droitwich premises of a Mr.Ian Kerr and the Consulting Association which led to Kerr's appearance in court in May and his case being sent to Crown Court for prosecution. Kerr had begun with the right-wing Economic League, which gathered and circulated information on thousands of people it considered left-wing "subversives", and had its activities funded by some of the leading names in British business. .After the League was officially wound up in 1993, Kerr set up his own operation, with building firms like Costain, Laing, Balfour Beatty and McAlpine as clients, pooling informaton and paying for dirt on job applicants.

For their £3,000 a year plus £2.20 per inquiry they could receive information such as that so-and-so was "Irish, ex-army, bad egg", or someone else an "ex-shop steward". There were files on more than 3,200 people. Some workers were listed for going to employment tribunals or even raising health and safety issues.

Blacklisting is not illegal - the Labour government resisted calls from trade unionists to outlaw the banning of workers from jobs in its 1999 Employment Act, claiming it did not have enough evidence of the practice. Kerr was raided and faces prosecution under the Data Protection Act, for keeping information on computer about individuals, without their knowledge, and denying the existence of these files.

One group of workers for whom the news of the blacklist was not news were some of Brian Bamford's fellow electricians in Manchester area, who have been in dispute at the Royal Infirmary site since 2006. Sure enough their names appeared in the files. Steve Acheson, secretary of the Manchester contracting branch of my own union Unite is described as a master militant. The workers' suspicion that they were blacklisted had already been confirmed when former Haden Young manager Alan Wainwright accused his company -Balfour Beatty's electrical subsidiary - of fraud and blacklisting. Wainwright said they employed a firm to gather information, and he released names of 1,000 electricians on the blacklist. He lost an unfair dismissal claim against Hayden Young, and now it is understood his own name is on the blacklist.

One entry quoted by Brian Bamford says that "EPIU site activity in Manchester is in the hands of **** *****, and other role apart from becoming an anarchist, is to travel around the country addressing meeetings."Clearly, a dangerous type!

The Electrical and Plumbing Industries Union(EPIU), formed when the EETPU electrical union was expelled from the TUC after Wapping, merged into the TGWU which is now part of Unite the Union. The EETPU meanwhile had merged with the engineers' union, and thus via Amicus is part of Unite's other wing. Brian notes that UCATT, the building union, is campaigning for blacklisting to be made unlawful. He wonders why Unite isn't doing more.

For now, this is a free country. You're free, more or less, to say what you like, to object to unsafe working conditions, for instance, and to join a trade union. If you gather some mates to picket, say, or go to another place to persuade others to come out, you may be accused of "conspiracy", as the Shrewsbury building workers were, and if you stop work in solidarity with others you may be in breach of the laws on secondary action, as we saw when airport workers were forbidden to come out in support of fellow workers - some of them family members -sacked by catering firm Gate Gourmet. The employers on the other hand can band together to exchange information and deny employment to someone, preventing that person earning their livelihood and providing for their family. But that is not considered "violence", or "conspiracy", and the threat that persuades you to keep your mouth shut and "nose clean" if you want to work, is not considered intimidation. Of course it is not illegal.

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

"You will never leave Gaza"

AS if Israeli piracy and kidnapping of aid workers was not enough, Egyptian authorities helping maintain the siege of Gaza are not only holding up relief supplies and harassing international volunteers trying to get into the Strip, but have given a new twist to their dirty game, by stopping two people leaving, according to a message received today.

The message, posted in among other places the Just Peace UK group on Yahoo says:

Action alert for Jenny and Natalie – “You will never leave Gaza”

Jenny and Natalie, both British passport holders, and both long term humanrights workers in the Gaza strip, are being prevented from leaving Gaza via theRafah Crossing. Please take action on their behalf.

Jenny Linnell is a co-founder of the ISM Rafah group, and an original crewmember of one of the "Free Gaza" boats. For the last year she has beenaccompanying Palestinians and documenting events in the Gaza strip, both before,during and after the war. You can see footage of her work with fishermen andfarmers under fire at

Natalie, from Lebanon (but with a British passport) also entered Gaza via oneof the Free Gaza boats and has been working as part of the InternationalSolidarity movement within Gaza since November 2008. You can see her work athttp://gaza08.blogspot.com/

Since the end of May Jenny has been trying to leave and return home via theborder crossing at Rafah into Egypt. She keeps getting turned away, mostrecently under pretty extreme circumstances, as outlined below. Natalie alsoneeds to leave Gaza in order to take up her place at a British University. TheEgyptian Border Guards told both women that they were being refused exit becauseof their work with the Free Gaza boats. They were told that they would 'never belet out'.

Natalie has written an account of their treatment, and their inhuman treatmentof so many Palestinians at the Rafah crossing, in ‘The Gates of Hell’

For the sake of both women and other peace workers it is vital that thistreatment is not allowed to continue unchallenged. Please help us get them backby ringing the British Foreign office and the Egyptian Embassy in London.

Or the Consular team: phone the Foreign office on +44 (0)2070081500 and ask tobe put through to the Consular Assistance team, ( who are there to assistBritish travellers when abroad).

If you get a chance to mail me to let me know when you rang, and how it went, itwould be great for helping us keep tabs on how effectively the mobilising going.Many many thanks on behalf of Jenny, Natalie and their friends and family.

Liz Snook. lizthesnook at gmail.com.(UK support team for Jenny and Natalie)

Sample letter:

Dear sir/ madam

I am concerned about the continued refusal at the Egyptian Border with Gaza tolet British citizens Jenny Linnell and Natalie Abou Chakra leave Gaza for returnvia Egypt to the UK. In the past months they have been engaged in humanitarianwork in Gaza and it is important that as British Citizens they must be givenwhatever legal protection and entitlement is necessary for their safe return tothe UK.

They had been assured that their documentation was in order and yet on the 28thof June it was deemed to be inadequate despite assurances made to the contrary.There appears to be a missing link in the coordination between the MFA and theEgyptian Intelligence Services, or between these offices and the officialsworking in the crossing, resulting in Ms Linnell and Ms Abou Chakras continuedrefused entry into Egypt.

As a matter of urgency, it is essential that a greater level of assurance isacquired from the MFA that this situation does not arise again, either throughfurther coordination or documentation, or by the physical presence of arepresentatives to ensure the border guards at the Egyptian crossing implementwhat appears to have been agreed by more senior Egyptian officials.

The women have every reason to believe that simple reiterations of documentationand assurances alone will not be sufficient. They have put their faith in thesemechanisms for over a month now, with no effect. They first approached theBritish Embassy in Cairo on the 31st of May. On the 9th of June they were toldthat they had the required coordination and paperwork from the MFA, this wasfaxed through to the British Embassy in Cairo. They took a copy of this fax tothe Crossing when they attempted to pass. They had been told that it wasacceptable for British nationals to leave before the date of the officialopening of the Crossing so they attempted to cross on the 10th of June. Afterseveral hours and several trips backwards and forwards by the by the Palestinianofficial responsible for coordination they were told that the EgyptianIntelligence office at the Crossing had informed him that we were not allowed togo through at that time and said things would work out once the Crossing opened. Despite several calls to Ms. Hayek from the MFA, they were refused entry.

On Saturday 27th June, 2009, the first day of the officially announced three-dayopening of the Rafah Crossing, 4 British citizens including Ms Linnell and MsAbou Chakra passed through six phases of checkpoints, before finally beingallowed onto a bus waiting before the gates to the Egyptian side of theCrossing. This meant that they were still on the Palestinian side, in a bus in aqueue of around seven buses and dozens of ambulances, stranded waiting for theEgyptians to open the entry gate to the Egyptian terminal. At 7.30pm local time,the Egyptians called the Palestinians to return back. The Egyptians then allowedsome ambulances through, although 20 ambulances and the buses were left strandedagain until 11pm, when all were returned back to Gaza.The following day, Sunday 28th June, the four British nationals headed to thecrossing in the early morning. At 2pm they were asked to get on a bus heading tothe Egyptian gate. At 3pm, the four British nationals had gained entry to theEgyptian terminal. At 7.30pm, the other two British nationals were allowed intoEgypt, however Ms. Linnell and Ms. Abou Chakra were told their passports werebeing checked and were then questioned by the border officials regarding thepurpose of their stay in Gaza, their arrival, and marital status. An hour later,Ms. Linnell and Ms. Abou Chakra's names were called as part of the list of thoseto be “returned back” to Gaza. The afore-mentioned protested against this,thinking that there must have been a misunderstanding, reiterated that they had"tanseeq", or coordination from the MFA based on the request of the BritishEmbassy and repeatedly showed the document from the MFA.

They were told by a uniformed officer that the faxed document was in fact aletter from the British Embassy and what they actually needed was a letter fromthe Egyptian Government, despite the fact that the document was written onletter-headed notepaper from the MFA emblazoned with a governmental emblem andthat it bore a governmental stamp below the text. They were also told that theyweren't being allowed to pass because the British Embassy hadn't approved oftheir departure from Gaza.

The officers and Intelligence personnel threw the faxed document on the ground.Ms. Linnell and Ms. Abou Chakra attempted to refuse to leave the Crossing,demanding to know why the permission they had previously been granted was notnow being honoured. No answer was given although an Intelligence officer there,Mr. Saeid, insisted that they needed “tassdeeq” which constitutes a call by theMFA to their office at the Crossing. He said the document from the MFA meantnothing. Ms. Dina Hayek from the MFA had previously explained to Ms. Linnellthat it would have been impossible for her to have sent the fax to the BritishEmbassy without the approval of the Intelligence Services.

After approaching other Intelligence officers, they were denied entry to theGovernment Security office that they'd been recommended. At around twelvemidnight, when one of the women was speaking to the media about the situation atthe Crossing, Mr. Saeid approached her saying “I will make sure you will notleave Gaza,” and assured her “We are untouchable” (literally, meen hayhasibna).During these hours, Ms. Linnell and Ms. Abou Chakra were speaking on thetelephone with family members who contacted the British Embassy in Cairo. “Weare working on it,” was a repetitive answer.. Hours later, they received a'phone call from Caroline, the Duty Officer at the Embassy saying, “I've seenthis happen before,” “Wait till tomorrow when we can sort things out,” and “Youhave everything you need to cross, the problem is from them [EgyptianIntelligence Services].”

The two British women informed the Embassy that they would remain in thecrossing until an explanation was given as to why they had been denied entrybased on unjustifiable and potentially false grounds. The Egyptian officials atthe border asked how they entered Gaza, and on explaining that they arrived onthe Free Gaza Movement Boats they were told, “So, you don’t need us to answer.You already know why you’re not being allowed out.”

This would seem to suggest that they were detained as a form of unofficialpunishment for their humanitarian work in Gaza. This is extremely alarming.Officers then forcibly removed them from the departure hall to where there was abus waiting outside. Moments later, Ms. Abou Chakra was also assaulted and lostsight of Ms. Linnell. Officers again threatened Ms. Abou Chakra with hercontinued detention in Gaza saying saying “We will make sure you will never getout,” and, “You are lucky you are not in Jordan. Our boots would be in yourmouths by now.”

The treatment Ms. Linnell and Ms. Abou Chakra were subjected to was abusive andunnecessary. The Egyptian authorities at the Crossing have failed to acknowledgetheir right of passage. As is evident from the verbal exchange mentioned above,this is a ...

As is evident from the verbal exchange mentioned above, this is a directchallenge from the Egyptian authorities to the democratic rights of any personwho has been working aiding the desperate situation in Gaza.

I would be grateful if you would fully investigate this matter further and urgeyou to act on this information to secure an efficient and safe passage from Gazafor these two humanitarian workers, which they have so far been unjustly denied.I would appreciate you keeping me informed of the results of your enquiries.--Yours sincerely

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

State Piracy: captives released but blockade remains - and so does news silence

SIX human rights campaigners illegally taken captive on the high seas by Israeli forces have been released. No thanks, so far as we know, to the British and US governments, nor to the corporate news media such as the BBC, which did not even report what had happened even though British citizens were on the boat that was seized.

The Free Gaza Movement vessel Spirit of Humanity was carrying medical supplies and children's toys when it was seized 23 miles off the coast of Gaza, on June 30. Among the 21 people on board, from 11 nationalities, were Irish Nobel peace laureate Mairead Maguire and former US congresswoman Cynthia McKinney.

The Israeli state is maintaining a blockade on the Gaza strip, in breach of international law, and there are reports now of Israeli forces preventing Palestinians in the West Bank taking food and drink through military checkpoints. But it appears there is another blockade trying to prevent the public here knowing any of this is happening.

The news statement issued below is from Italian MEP Luisa Morgantini, who is a member of Rifondazione Comunista, and vice president of the European Parliament:.

FREED THE 6 HUMAN RIGHTS ACTVISTS ARRESTED BY THE ISRAELI ARMY FOR TAKING MEDICINES AND TOYS TO GAZA BY SEA

Luisa Morgantini and a delegation from the End the Siege in Gaza campaign will be in Brussels next Wednesday, 8th July, and meet EU HR Solana to present their protests

Rome, 7th July 2009

Finally Israel released yesterday the Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Maguire, the former U.S. congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and all the human rights activists of the Free Gaza Movement arrested on 30th June while they were trying to taking medicines and toys to Gaza by boat, forcibly boarded by the Israeli Navy, who threatened to fire and confiscated the ship.

A Delegation of members of European Parliaments and activists from the End the Siege Campaign will meet on Wednesday 8th July at 11 a.m. the HR for EU Foreign Affairs Javier Solana in order to reiterate the request -arriving from many NGOs and human rights organizations in the world, as well as from European Parliament’s resolutions - to break the siege of Gaza and to compel Israel to open the borders for people and goods. The delegation will alsodenounce the case of SPIRIT OF HUMANITY - the ship aimed to deliver humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza- and protest against the takeover by Israel's navy of the boat and of its 21-member crew in violation of the international law.

The delegation will accuse once again the lack of legality and Humanity shown by the Israeli Authorities preventing medicines and toys to enter in Gaza, arresting and abducting human rights defenders and journalists, and also denying the right for Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Maguire –arriving today in Ireland- to access her medicine: the same or probably worse happens for about 11000 Palestinian Prisoners in Israeli jails -many without trial- and the worst of course happens with the collective punishment of Gaza population, prevented to basic needs through the siege as Mairead Maguire denounced in an interview from an Israeli prison.

“We have been detained, and we want the people of the world to see how we have been treated just because we wanted to deliver humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza; how can I be in prison for collecting crayons to kids?” asked in a letter written from her cell in Ramle prison a former U.S. congresswoman Cynthia McKinney.

Legality and human dignity must always and everywhere be respected: Israel must stop its illegal policies. The inhuman siege of the Strip must immediately end, as well as all settlements activity in the West Bank and the Israeli military occupation, the only way to achieve a peaceful and just solution in the region. The delegation, who will meet the HR for EU Foreign Affairs Javier Solana, will be very adamant in its request.

Luisa Morgantini has been to Gaza (and to Sderot) and is raising human rights and the Palestinian people's plight in the European parliament. What are other MEPs doing? And what is the point of supposed Left alternatives standing if all they can say is "No to EU" and promise they won't even take their seats?

Monday, July 06, 2009

Return to Shrewsbury

ASSEMBLING for the off at Abbey Foregate.RICKY TOMLINSON speaking at the rally.CROWD was swelled by local people.

THE historic market town of Shrewsbury, and its abbey particularly, will be known to fans of historic crime fiction as the place from which Ellis Peters' detective monk Brother Cadfael sets out to investigate foul deeds and right injustices. The crowd that gathered at the Abbey Foregate on Saturday, July 4, are just as determined to uncover the truth and set right a real injustice that occurred 25 years ago.

It was to Shrewsbury that 32 building workers were brought after the 1972 building workers' strike to stand trial on alleged offences committed when they came to picket and persuade workers on nearby sites to join their strike. Oddly enough, none of them had been arrested on the day they came down from North Wales - indeed as Ricky Tomlinson told Saturday's rally, the police had escorted the pickets from site to site, and when they were about to go home the officer in charge boarded their coach to say thankyou for the way they had conducted themselves!

It was after the strike that police raided homes and took men into custody, and they wound up in the dock on "conspiracy" charges. As Tomlinson revealed, he had initially been approached to act as a prosecution witness, perhaps because they knew his politics were different ("I wasn't always a left-winger").. As fellow-defendent Des Warren told the court, "There was a conspiracy, but not by the building workers". It was the Tories, the employers, senior police officers and judges who had conspired, and now we know MI5 was also involved.

After appeal, Ricky Tomlinson got a two year sentence, and Des Warren got three. Des died in 2004, having suffered drug-induced Parkinsonism as a result of the way he was treated in prison. Besides describing some of the harassment and frequent moves they went through, Ricky Tomlinson reminded us that a Labour Home Secretary could have freed them, but they spent more of their time inside under Labour than had been under the Tories.

The Shrewsbury pickets campaign wants all the verdicts against the 24 overturned, with an apology, but it also wants a full inquiry into what went on behind the scenes, with all the documents released. The government is still insisting that would endanger "national security!!

Shrewsbury picket Terry Renshaw, who has gone on to become mayor of Flint and, as he pointed out, sits on a police authority, told us "I'm the same man". He has seen Justice Minister Jack Straw in his efforts to obtain an inquiry into the case. Besides local trades union activists, other speakers included miners' leader Arthur Scargill, who had flown back from a meeting in France to attend, and of a newer generation of militants, Rob Williams, reinstated convenor at the Linamar factory in Swansea.

Besides building workers, some of whom had travelled from as far as Crook, in County Durham and Croydon in south London, Saturday's march and rally included sacked Liverpool dockers, with their banner, and members of the Amicus engineering union, and rail union RMT, post office workers, Unison, and PCS civil servants from the Telford and Shrewsbury areas. Des Warren's son and sister were also present. After the speeches we were able to quench our thirst in Unison's social club behind the county hall, and were entertained by Liverpool singer Alun Parry and Birmingham's Banner theatre.

But the unanimous feeling of all assembled was that this was not an end but a new beginning to our campaign; and local people, including some youth who joined us, were very pleased the campaign had come to Shrewsbury.There was applause to the suggestion that this become an annual event.

Friday, July 03, 2009

Arms profiteers versus Armenian people

WHY, in these recession-hit times, when companies are backing off so many projects, have six big corporations - one of them BAE Systems(formerly known as British Aerospace) found money to lobby the US Congress, not over trade restrictions, taxes or legislation that might obviously effect business, but on an issue concerning something that happened almost a century ago?

A recent report by Associated Press writer Stephen Singer,featured in the Boston Globe, "Companies lobby (quietly) on Armenia genocide bill, June 13, said:"Five military contractors and an energy company have stepped into a fight over whether the U.S. should label Turkey's slaughter of a million Armenians nearly a century ago as genocide".

The companies concerned are BAE, Goodrich, Northrop Grunman, Raytheon, United Technologies,all in the weapons business, and Chevron, an oil company. Not suprisingly they all have ties with Turkey, "a key strategic ally of the US", as Singer notes.

What is perhaps surprising is that almost a century after the 1915 massacres, when the Turkish government could apologise and say it has nothing to do with what was done so long ago, during the First World War, the Turkish state is apparently still in denial, so much that companies with business in Turkey find it worthwhile to lobby for silence.Not that the companies have made any public statement.

"They don't want to be seen opposing a resolution that has a very evident human rights element," said Rouben Adalian, director of the Armenian National Institute, a Washington research organization. "It would put them on the side of denying history and denying genocide."

According to the Associated Press report the six companies spent $14 million to lobby Congress in the first quarter of this year. Besides the genocide resolution, the companies lobbied on Pentagon spending, climate change, taxes and more.

"United Technologies, which sells Sikorsky helicopters to Turkey, says it provided information to lawmakers 'that helped round out their understanding of the international trade and national security interests involved.'

"Lobbying on human rights issues comes with risks, said Gerry Keim, associate dean at Arizona State University's W.P. Carey School of Business. Several companies halted their efforts opposing restrictions on white minority-ruled South Africa in the 1980s when anti-apartheid activists applied pressure.

"Originally, they were concerned about markets in South Africa. Then they were concerned about markets here," Keim said. Other analysts say any public backlash against companies lobbying on the Armenia genocide resolution would be minimal because the firms serve governments, not individual consumers who could boycott their products.

"Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million mostly Christian Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I. Turkey denies that the deaths were genocide, saying the number of casualties is inflated and was the consequence of civil war and unrest."

Among the current U.S.-Turkish business links are a $3 billion contract from Northrop to a Turkish company to be a supplier for fighter jets. Goodrich Corp. and a Turkish firm agreed to a joint venture for maintenance and repair work on engine components. BAE Systems and a Turkish company jointly market and supply armored vehicles to the Turkish armed forces.

Chevron holds a stakes in a pipeline that crosses the country. Raytheon has agreed to sell to Turkey Stinger missile launcher systems valued at $34 million and is working to sell its missile defense systems.

The Centre for Armenian Remembrance has expressed concern that the big corporations are spending as much as a million dollars a week. "The world-wide Armenian community cannot match this level of expenditure" It is appealing for people to sign a petition that will go to the company heads and key stockholders.